Postcard sent from my father home to his parents from the SS Mauretania in 1950 – note the postmark “Paquebot” meaning it was sent via a mail boat.

I ran into a fellow postcard collector at the stamp show last month. As we both dug through the $1 box (literally dug as everything was thrown into boxes unsorted – not postcards neatly standing in shoe boxes, but envelopes and postcards thrown into banker’s boxes), we struck up the customary small talk conversation. Once I revealed that I only collected postcards, he inquired what kinds. Well… as I thought how I can summarize the myriad of categories that I currently collect… “Mostly Eiffel Tower and Seattle,” I said (which of course is a gross over-simplification of the thousands of in my albums and boxes). “What do you collect?” I asked in return. “Ship postmarks on postcards.” talk about a niche – and not an easy one to find. Sure, if the postcard has a picture of a ship on the front there is a chance that the postmark will be from the ship on the back – if it was even mailed. But maybe not. And what if the postcard doesn’t picture a ship – what if it is of the island that was visited? Not many people would think to look at the postmark while sorting it. Anyway, he didn’t find anything in the $1 boxes, but he did inspire to find out if ships actually do postmark their mail.

The next weekend, my mom, daughter and I took a re-positioning cruise from Seattle to Vancouver B.C. Cruise ships need to stop in at least one foreign port during each cruise. It’s some old law that I’m sure my husband would be happy to explain to you if you are interested. In this case, Los Angeles was the home port for the the Crown Princess’ winter cruises. in order to get the boat from Seattle to L.A., it had to stop in a foreign port – and fortunately to get from Seattle to the Pacific Ocean (through Puget Sound) it passes by Vancouver. So, Princess cruise-lines offered up this cheap little overnight cruise from Seattle to Vancouver (starting at $49 – crazy, right). The three of us boarded the ship at 2pm Sat. afternoon. Dropped our bags in our room with an “obstructed view” (not really) and headed out to have coffee and cake (most food was included in the ticket price). I also stopped at the customer service desk to purchase Canadian stamps (I brought some postcards to be mailed from Vancouver once I disembarked the ship). They did not sell Canadian stamps on the ship – only US International Forever stamps – which created much confusion with the customer service representative that was helping me (she did not grasp that you cannot send mail from Canada to the US with US stamps). What I did learn during this process was that the ship mail is sent from the next port of call – i.e. if I had Canadian stamps, my postcards would have been sent from Vancouver. Since I only had US stamps (I did bring US Forever postcard stamps with me), they would be sent from the next US port-of-call. Ok, now that I know what is going on (hopefully) with the mail, I asked if there were postcards of the ship I could purchase. The customer service rep., perhaps feeling sorry for me at this point, handed me a stack of 10 and told me if I needed more to feel free to ask.

After our little coffee break, we walked the decks for a while, then went back to the room. I wrote out 5 of the 10 postcards, attached my US stamps, went back to the Customer Service desk and handed them over. Honestly I was guessing that it would be about 2 weeks before they arrived – which is about average for when I’ve mailed postcards from resorts and hotels. Imagine my surprise when the postcards started arriving 3 days later! Yay! But the postmark was the generic postmark from Seattle (not sure why, but the cruise came back through Seattle before heading down the California coast). Boo! I guess the romance of ship postmarks is dead. Have you gotten any ship postmarks?

The postcard I sent home from the Seattle to Vancouver BC cruise. Note the Seattle postmark (the ship docked in Seattle after we disembarked in Vancouver).

About the author

I started collecting postcards when I was about 5 years old. My only Grandfather lived in Germany, and it was a fun way for us to correspond and have some sort of relationship. I adored the "Hilde" postcards, and he soon started sending me a different one each time he wrote. I had a special bond with my paternal Grandfather, although I only met him a few times.
A few years later my adopted Grandparents in Denver started sending me postcards from their vacations, which were mostly road-trips around the USA. My collection continued to grow and eventually filled two binders. As my collection grew, my mother, who also collected postcards when she was young, started adding postcards to my binders from her collection. I had so much fun dreaming of traveling to exotic places! I would sort and re-sort the postcards by type, location, like/dislike, etc.
It wasn't until I was in my 20's, when I sorted the postcards chronologically by sender, that I realized there were a few postcards from my maternal grandmother to my mother. One such postcard was sent to my mother as a teenager who was visiting family in Berlin. My Grandmother wrote and asked her to come home early because my Grandfather's illness had taken a turn for the worse. My Grandmother died a few months later of an unrelated disease, and my Grandfather several weeks after that.
I also found a postcard from a ship that my paternal Grandfather sailed on to immigrate to the USA. He sent it to his parents and explains that when he got seasick, the crew told him to eat rollmops and drink beer and hot cocoa (yes, pickled herring + beer + chocolate).
My current postcard collection is divided into two sets. One set is the pictures I like sorted by theme - exotic places, animals that make me smile, costumes that I dream of making. The other set is from family and pieces together our story.
I still send postcards when I travel and am an active trader.